Keller still irked by re-scheduling of upcoming match: "We were called last."
FC Köln sporting director, as well as new DFL and DFB board member, Christian Keller again hit out at the German league body he's recently been elected to at a Saturday post-match presser. Keller is irked that the DFL moved Köln's upcoming match against Leverkusen from up from next Sunday to next Friday.
The question would unavoidably come again. In point of fact, sitting alongside 1. FC Köln head-coach Steffen Baumgart at a Saturday post-match presser, Köln sporting director Christian Keller referred to it as his "favorite question". Reporters wanted to again elicit comment about the German league body's decision to move up Köln's upcoming league fixture against Bayer 04 Leverkusen up from next Sunday to next Friday. Leverkusen requested the change so as to give them extra time to prepare for their ongoing Europa League campaign.
"We're keeping our fingers crossed for Leverkusen, and I mean that completely honestly and sincerely," Keller said, "I hope they progress and win the Europa League as that would be very important for German football. And it's not as if the change really puts us at a competitive disadvantage."
"But I still don't understand it," Keller nevertheless continued, "I thought that there was an integrity to this competition. Why were matches not transferred last year when Frankfurt played for the Europa League? I don't understand that. Bayern Munich plays for an international title almost every year, and I've never seen a game postponed there either."
Keller is actually incorrect. The DFL postponed matches for both RB Leipzig and Eintracht Frankfurt last year to a Monday whilst both clubs participated in the Europa League semi-finals. The club executive - who even sits on the DFL supervisory board - still found reasons to grumble.
Keller seemed to still be angry that his team weren't granted a postponement earlier this season on matchday 12 when fog forced Köln to play an Europa Conference fixture against Slovako on a Friday.
"After the Slovacko game, the first thing I did was call Hoffenheim and ask if we could talk about it, and then I called everyone else," Keller noted, "We were called last, and I don't understand that. If we were called first, I might give different answers now. They say there were 'overriding reasons', but I don't know what they were and I don't want to try and explain it."
"At the supervisory board, you're forbidden from influencing the scheduling of matches" he stressed, adding somberly, "At the DFL, someone has to decide what is an overriding reason. What the procedures are, no one here wants to know, because otherwise one or the other may lose faith in the integrity of the competition."